Traditional material spreaders have been designed to include a container, known as a hopper, from which particulate materials can be emptied slowly and evenly onto a spinning disk, called an impeller, so as to then be distributed in a pattern to a lawn or other like surface. Generally, the hoppers comprise side walls that taper inwardly from an open top to a flat, closed bottom through which one or more holes are pierced in such a location as to allow material to be emptied directly upon the surface of the spinning impeller. A problem with the traditional design is that the flat hopper bottom tends to gather material about its edges and upon its surface, oftentimes precluding complete emptying of the hopper, in what is known as bridging.
Another disadvantage to the traditional spreader is that although the traditional spreader has a means to adjust the output dispensing rate of the material, the traditional spreaders do not have a means to disperse particulate material that vary in size. For example, the traditional spreaders cannot adapt to disperse very fine particulate material, such as grass seed, up to larger particulate material, such as rock salt, stone, etc. in a uniform manner.